Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Looking on the bright side...

Today, they're part of a group of 19 retired zoo and circus elephants that have made it to The Elephant Sanctuary. Instead of enduring steel pens and chains, the pachyderms roam 2,700 acres of forest and pasture land in the rolling hills of central Tennessee. America's largest private natural refuge, the sanctuary boasts a climate, terrain, and vegetation surprisingly similar to the elephants' native Asian and African birthplaces. The animals are not on public display, and they set their own schedules.

Apropos of the elephant sanctuary, here’s one for gorillas. Pimlico Software (www.pimlicosoftware.com) makes DateBk5, a popular Palm calendar program and the proceeds from its software sales go to The Dewar Foundation, which runs Gorilla Haven (www.gorilla-haven.org).

From the DateBk site: “And what is Gorilla Haven all about?! Proceeds from the sale of Pimlico's shareware products go to the Dewar Wildlife Trust, Inc. a 501(c)(3) a Georgia non-profit corporation which the Dewars established to fund various wildlife conservation projects including the Dewar's own Gorilla Haven project which is building an AZA certified sanctuary for Western Lowland Gorillas on 324 acres in the North Georgia Mountains -- the first resident - Joe - arrived at Gorilla Haven in April, 2003.”

Peripherally related: You may remember a gorilla named Koko, who received a lot of media play in the 1980’s-90’s because she “adopted” a kitten. Made for great visuals: giant, tough-looking, dark black gorilla with a tiny fluffy, carefully handled kitten. Saw a recent update on Discovery or Nova or somewhere. Koko and her caretaker apparently communicate using American Sign Language. It was an absolutely fascinating show which gave a lot of insight into animal behavior, much of which was shockingly and uncomfortably similar to human behaviors. You’d almost think that there was some relationship …